Strengthening Families: Parents\u27 Voices on Discipline and Child Rearing

This qualitative study conducted semi-structured, multi-session focus groups and interviews with twenty-seven participants to explore in-depth, participant constructs of child discipline and punishment methods and reasons for the continuing support for corporal punishment of U.S. children. The research assumed that parents want to parent well and utilized the strengths perspective as the instrument to listen to participants\u27 voices. Narratives revealed that participants were thoughtful about discipline and parenting strategies and viewed their parent role as a serious commitment. Non-violent discipline strategies, particularly communication, were often used. However, parents generally framed use of physical punishment as “when children need spanking” versus articulating the view that corporal punishment is a choice. Parents were unfamiliar with risks associated with physical punishment and only three parents, as a result of their foster parent training, had ever heard, “Do not spank.” Participants enumerated services and recommendations that would support and inform their own parenting, as well as, benefit children and the eighty percent of women and men in the United States who become mothers and fathers. Recommendations included: creation of a national campaign to build on parent strengths and the intentionality of effective parenting; child development education and increased public awareness of positive discipline methods; parenting supports, including respite and venues for dialogue and discourse about parenting. Recommendations are intended to inform child welfare practice and policy, particularly child abuse prevention. Creating, funding, and implementing a national campaign as described would challenge the dominant child welfare paradigm from one currently perceived as punitive and focused on parents\u27 deficits to a strengths-based paradigm that provides supports and assistance to parents and children

Plasma igniter for internal combustion engine

An igniter for the air/fuel mixture used in the cylinders of an internal combustion engine is described. A conventional spark is used to initiate the discharge of a large amount of energy stored in a capacitor. A high current discharge of the energy in the capacitor switched on by a spark discharge produces a plasma and a magnetic field. The resultant combined electromagnetic current and magnetic field force accelerates the plasma deep into the combustion chamber thereby providing an improved ignition of the air/fuel mixture in the chamber

Apollo experience report: Development and use of specialized radio equipment for Apollo recovery operations

New personal communications equipment was required for the Apollo Program recovery operations. Two new, small, personal radios were developed and used successfully in the Apollo recovery program

Iteration, and The Iron Theater

Sculpture is produced with considerations to aesthetic appeal using mathematical patterns and physics. Both avenues of sculpture, the static sculpture and the performance art, have their foundation in this approach to creating artworks. The work in the catalog is a visual representation of this process

(In)formal Distinction in Urban Istanbul: Evaluating Spatial Performance

As globalization continues to draw the world into closer economic and intellectual dependence, massive tracts of informally designed communities in Istanbul are being cleared to accommodate the growing infrastructure of the modern, tourism-driven city This attempt to purge the city of its ‘squatter’ heritage is startling and raises questions of cultural integrity in urban development. Istanbul’s desire for expanded global investment is particularly apparent in the object of this study, the blended district of Kartal. This study measures, compares, and evaluates spatial performance of formal and informal neighborhood spaces, but makes no formal attempt to draw normative prescriptive conclusions. The theories of Kevin Lynch and Jane Jacobs are synthesized in order to analyze three constructs of spatial performance: density, grain and access. As such, this study has not only produced a more rigorous tool for remote analysis, but one that can be applied to other urban settlements in the future

The Avalanche : A Cantata for Mezzo-soprano, Flute, Viola, and Harp

The Avalanche by James Laughlin was originally written as two poems, The Avalanche and The Shape of Love, then published as one in 1945. It unfolds the turmoil one faces with a new love and a looming past. I set the poem to music in four movements with an instrumental prelude for mezzo-soprano, flute, viola, and harp, thus making my piece a cantata, which is typically defined as a work for one or more voices and orchestral accompaniment in multiple movements that divide a single text. Although seemingly counterintuitive, the decision to have the text delivered by a mezzo-soprano was intentionally unfaithful to the source of the poem. In contradiction with common practice in the Western classical music tradition, my intent was to displace the poem from its heterosexual origin. Prominent examples of such gender displacement include folk pop artist Marissa Nadler’s adaptation of the first three stanzas of Poe’s Annabel Lee, composer Judith Weir’s setting of Keats’s I Had a Dove, part of her song cycle, The Voice of Desire, and many of the folk song arrangements of Benjamin Britten, who often allowed for gender transgressive treatments of the text by leaving otherwise gendered voice parts unspecified. The cantata, The Avalanche, was recorded on June 15, 2015, in Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall chamber music hall by Michelle Fernandez (mezzo- soprano), Selina Kent (flute), Julia McGarrety (viola), and Lily Breshears (harp) with sound engineer James Pearson

Investigation of the pathogenesis of Saimiriine herpesvirus 1 in Balb/c mice

Scope and Method of Study: The purpose of this study was to investigate the pathogenesis of Saimiriine herpesvirus 1 (SaHV-1) infection by characterizing the clinical disease and gross and microscopic lesions in experimentally infected mice. To aid in the identification of anatomic sites of viral replication and to trace viral spread in experimentally infected mice, a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing recombinant strain of SaHV-1 was constructed and used in subsequent inoculation studies. Mice were inoculated intramuscularly or epidermally with ten-fold dilutions of virus and sacrificed at 14 or 21 days in endpoint studies or on sequential days in temporal studies. Serum was tested by ELISA and tissues were examined microscopically with routine stains, immunohistochemistry, and confocal microscopy.Findings and Conclusions: SaHV-1 inoculation of Balb/c mice, either intramuscularly or epidermally, resulted in active infection as indicated by seroconversion, clinical disease, and gross and microscopic lesions. Mice inoculated intramuscularly initially developed skin lesions in the region of inoculation with subsequent development of paresis or paralysis of the inoculated hindlimb in animals receiving higher doses of virus. Lesions in these mice were restricted to the skin and thoracolumbar spinal cord and consisted of necrotizing dermatitis and segmental myelitis with neuronal necrosis. Mice inoculated with SaHV-1 via epidermal scarification developed a more rapidly progressive, severe disease that began in the inoculated epidermis and spread to involve thoracolumbar spinal cord, regional autonomic ganglia, and lower urinary tract. All mice receiving an infective dose of virus by this route developed ultimately fatal disease. GFP expression, indicating viral replication, corresponded with microscopic lesions and was present in keratinocytes of the epidermis, neurons of the dorsal root ganglia, spinal cord, sympathetic ganglia, and colonic myenteric plexus as well as epithelium of the lower urinary tract. SaHV-1 exhibited neurovirulence in Balb/c mice that varied significantly with the route of inoculation

An exploration of a rural Arkansas K-12 educational leader's and community's social media use

This exploratory qualitative case study was designed to examine a rural Arkansas K-12 educational leader's and community's communication using social media. Hoffman and Novak's (1996) model of marketing communications in a hypermedia computer-mediated environment served as the conceptual framework for analyzing the leader's social media use from the perspectives of students, parents, and faculty/staff members. The rural K-12 school was located in the northwest region of Arkansas. The study's participants included an educational leader nationally recognized for her use of technology and her students, parents, and faculty/staff members. Through information-gathering questionnaires, interviews, focus group sessions, observations, and document gathering, data were collected and triangulated. Three themes emerged through data analysis. The themes included: recognition of and appreciation for Mrs. Johnson's authentic proficient professional social media use on sites such as Twitter; the power of connectedness both in her relationships with students and with others around the nation through social media; and the positive impact of Mrs. Johnson's professional social media use on the school and its stakeholders, including the faculty/staff, students, and its reputation. These themes furnish an understanding of the phenomenon of a rural K-12 educational leader's professional social media use as perceived by faculty/staff, students, and parents. This study's findings indicated that a rural K-12 educational leader's students, parents, and faculty/staff positively perceive the leader's professional social media use as a sign of leadership in technology use, a model of responsible social media use, a fount of resources and ideas to be shared, and as a source of school pride and culture. Professional social media use may also function as an instantaneously accessible personal learning network for educational leaders, supplying them with peer-connections, concepts, and information free from geographical limitations. While students, parents, and faculty/staff members may be novice users of technology or social media, they believe that the educational leader's professional social media use benefits the students and the school

Climate-Induced Forest Dieback as an Emergent Global Phenomenon

An organized oral session at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in San Jose, Calif., posed this question: Is climate-induced drought stress triggering increasing rates and unusual patterns of forest die-off at a global scale? Twenty-nine researchers representing five continents reported on patterns, mechanisms, and projections of forest mortality